The festive period is commencing, something which we have all been patiently waiting for. It’s time to reach out to your consumers with the best social media marketing to date. Although this year may be slightly different, the festive season will still be one of the biggest periods for booming online sales. With consumers already browsing online for Christmas gifts, there is no better time to start your social media campaigns to stand out from your competitors.

We have put together a list of 10 of the most effective social media marketing tips to help promote your brand over the Christmas period.

Our 10 tips for a great Christmas social media campaign

1) Engaging visuals

Create impactful visuals that will have your customers engaged. Stay true to your brand identity, but get creative with your holiday content. You want to inspire your audience and connect them to your products or services.

Creating relevant imagery, text-based graphics and videography will produce a dynamic visual across social media. Being bold but simple will mean more people will be inclined to share your content and this is perfect for social media marketing.

2) Tell a heart-warming story

Every year large companies pull on the heartstrings of their audiences with a heart-warming story, whether that is a television advertisement, blog, curated images or videos. It is a creative way to invite your audience in and encourage them to enjoy the festive season. Large businesses such as Selfridges, Coca Cola, Sainsbury’s, Argos, John Lewis and many more demonstrate how successful festive storylines can be to boost sales.

John Lewis triumphs with their Christmas advert each year. In 2019 we saw Edgar the dragon bring an element of emotion to our TV screens, which spiked John Lewis Christmas sales over the Christmas period. John Lewis saw an incredible £309.63m in the first seven days after the advert was released. This was an increase in sales in comparison to the same week in 2018, which brought in £291.92m for the company. John Lewis has the formula for a great heart-warming story that not only increases sales but also their adverts have now become a huge part of British culture and signal the start of the run-up to Christmas.

Telling a heart-warming story allows businesses to connect with their audience and push brand awareness whilst spreading the festive spirit. Creating special and memorable content will ensure your business is remembered and will create a conversation between your audiences. This content may be shared on social media accounts, which is great for brand awareness as it will reach a wider audience.

3) Research national days

Something a little fun and light-hearted to connect with your audience on social media is always useful. Researching national days in November and December is a great way to find trending dates, which will drive up social engagement. Days such as ‘national cupcake day,’ ‘ugly sweater day’ and ‘candy cane day’ are all great examples of treading content in the festive season. It is even better if you can showcase some of your products or services in action.

As well as this, national days can bring awareness to some important days. Using social media platforms means that you will be able to reach a large audience in a matter of seconds through using hashtags, which will drive up engagement and reach new audiences. A perfect example of this is for World

HIV/AIDs Day on 1st December created by the (RED) charity. Iconic brands such as Apple and Durex partnered with the (RED) charity and generated over $600m for this national day.

4) Customer engagement

Engaging with your customers is essential to all successful businesses. Customer engagement allows new and existing audiences to discover your business. They can also find new products and services they would like to purchase. A little personal touch will go a long way.

Understanding what your consumers want will increase sales and help to build valued and trusted relationships. In particular social media platforms can be a great way to interact with customers on a more personal level. Replying to comments or reacting to comments should be a priority to help increase customer engagement. This will improve customer knowledge of particular products. It can also provide customers with relevant links needed to ensure the query has been answered.

It is equally important to respond to critical comments, although it might seem more difficult, it is extremely important to cater to your customer’s requests and needs.

5) Support local businesses

With the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic, some local businesses have faced an incredibly tough year. Therefore, it is so important, now more than ever, to share love and support. Showing support to your local businesses or smaller businesses will raise the holiday spirits. It will also create a sense of positivity. It will show current and new audiences that your brand takes pride in supporting small and local business. This will create a positive brand image.

Online social media support, showcasing products or services will help boost local businesses. It will display to your audience that your brand cares about your local community and the local business may promote your business to their customers in return. This could help to reach a larger audience and it could encourage referral and recommendations to your business. Family and friends are usually more inclined to buy products or services if someone they trust, or a brand they trust has referred them. It will generate traffic to both businesses creating a sense of togetherness

6) Festive competitions and giveaways

Festive giveaways and competitions will generate a lot of attention on social media platforms. Who doesn’t want to win free products or services?

Deliver your competition in a variety of ways to generate attention. Are you creating videos? Taking photographs? Pinning competition posts? Getting influencers to talk about competitions? These are all great ideas to direct traffic from your social media platforms to your website.

For example, your business could ask followers on social media to tag three friends in the giveaway post you have created. Make sure they are following your businesses social media account(s) and share their story for extra engagement. By doing this you will increase followers and increase engagement on your post and account. You will also reach a new audience quickly, and you will build up a bank of people that you can market to at a later date.

Ensuring that your competition is ready and comes to a close within the Christmas period will allow the winner to receive their prize in time for Christmas. Engaging with the winner on social media, making them feel valued is a good way to encourage other users to enter future competitions. Giving teasers for upcoming competitions will allow your audience to stay engaged and keep update with your business.

7) Showcase charity

The festive season is widely associated with giving. Working with a charity to bring awareness to the positive and helpful work they do is a fantastic way to drive customer engagement. Bring awareness to important charities as well as help create a positive brand image for your company.

8) Create festive content

Use this festive period to experiment with different styles of content. Putting effort into a variety of content such as YouTube videos, blog posts, podcasts, competitions, LinkedIn, Instagram images and many more will help a wider audience become familiar with your brand. Don’t hesitate to give extra content throughout the festive season. Feature your products and services, showcase products and services you are partnered with, and create a narrative as to why people should be buying from your company.

9) Influencer promotions

Influencer marketing is an extremely powerful avenue of promotion. Supporting influencers that are cohesive with your brand identity, respectable and valued can help increase brand awareness and revenue. Promoting your business through affiliates allows you to reach a bigger audience as you are tapping into their large followings. It helps to create brand trust, as people are far more likely to buy from a company recommended by their favourite influencer. Festive-themed content shared on influencer profiles can help to increase brand awareness and generate increased revenue.

Influencers can…

  • Drive sales through product unboxing’s or competitions
  • Host Instagram lives, talking about products or services your business offers
  • Feature personal discount codes to drive sales
  • Host online events on the businesses behalf

10) Share inspirational content

The festive season holds a lot of love and positivity. Use this time to share inspirational quotes and showcase inspirational people. Show your audience what your brand is doing to uplift spirits through these unprecedented times. Creating a sense of community, a place where people can relate to your content. It is also important to highlight the successes of a difficult year, which will help to keep spirits high. Keep it relevant and positive.

How can Castle help you?

Need support on creating innovative social media content, to produce the outcomes you desire? Castle can help you. We have a team of experts who specialise in social media marketing including organic social and social advertisements, and affiliate marketing. We can manage all aspects of your social media, creating a tailored strategy to help you achieve your goals. Castle is a web development and design agency that has become one of the fastest-growing agencies in the UK. We are experts in all aspects of marketing and have helped build success for businesses from a variety of industries.

To find out more about how Castle can help you overhaul your social media marketing strategy, visit our website or contact us on 0330 107 5344 or info@castle.co.uk.